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This chapter addresses some concerns of British horror cinema with specific reference to an extraordinary proliferation of what Noël Carroll would term ‘fusion monsters’, represented in various films. In each of these highly self-reflexive films a new kind of ‘fusion hero’ can also be seen to emerge: one who undertakes a hybridisation of earlier models of British masculinity in his mission to conquer the monster and become a man. Thus, in new millennial British horror one can also see not only a tendency to parody and pastiche earlier horror texts but a will to explore earlier models of British masculinity—specifically those drawn from Britain's imperial past. As such, attitudes to women are highly significant in each of these films. Thus a new form of masculine identity can be seen to emerge from the ruins: one that is simultaneously hard-hitting and gentle, innovative and steady, decisive and compassionate. British horror of the new millennium not only points to the traumatised nature of the contemporary British male self-image but to the ways in which it is possible to work through the horror and, in so doing, become a new kind of man. Various examples of films are also presented that are indicative of the patterns followed in British cinema.

This chapter discusses how British horror films reveal the British national psyche as the heritage film or the social realist drama. It describes the British horror film as the site where high- and low-culture converge. It also talks about real-life horror and how it is easily transformed into generic fantasy. The chapter discusses the English fascination with murder. It talks about the importance of the gothic novel of the late eighteenth century as a kind of anti-Enlightenment vision of the spooky, and its influence to the cheap mass-market publications or 'Penny Dreadfuls'. It also talks about the influence of this low-brow popular literature that can be observed in the pulp fiction and horror comics which would cause a moral panic in the 1950s. The chapter discusses serial killers and 'Ripperology', the small industry that sprung up around Jack the Ripper that has cast a remarkable shadow over the British horror cinema.

This chapter discusses the context and production of Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General (1968). It first traces the history of British horror cinema, British gothics, and the American International Pictures (AIP). Unlike the Hammer product of the 1960s, Witchfinder General reflects the political upheaval of this turbulent decade. Much of the power of the film arises from the tension between genre conventions and wider, social concerns, with Reeves obliquely addressing topical issues such as the war in Vietnam and the growing ‘generation gap’. In this context, the subtle anachronisms in the film can be seen as part of a deliberate strategy, a way to make a film which is as much about the 1960s as it is the 1640s. In that sense, Witchfinder General is in a tradition of British period films that aim to capture the contemporary zeitgeist. The chapter then looks at the reception of the film. When assessing the critical reaction to Witchfinder General, it is instructive to consider the prevailing attitudes to horror cinema at that time.